Oblivion


A quick synopsis for Oblivion is that its the future, aliens have obliterated Humans by breaking the moon up or something and Tom Cruise is a half commando/half mechanic who maintains drones and a big machine that sucks sea water up into it for powering a floating triangle in space. This storyline is really just an excuse to make a beautiful looking Sci-Fi film utilising every single Sci-Fi cliche you can imagine.

The best thing about this film was that I saw it in a cinema with the Dolby Surround EX system which introduces an extra rear channel to the sound setup. It was perfect for this film as there are drones and flying things shooting all around the place throughout the whole film and it really sounded like they were moving around you in the cinema.

Almost all of the attention of this film went to the set design, CGI and sound, and its very noticeable. The sets were gorgeous and the CGI was near photo real. When that was combined with the sound, it engineered a rather beautiful post apocalyptic Earth. The designs were like a modern take on the traditional retro "future" designs Ive seen from Sci Fi flicks of the 70's and it worked really well. A see through swimming pool suspended above the Earth with a naked lady swimming around it was a highlight of the film. Unfortunately with all of the attention on these matters they forgot about a pretty important part of the film which was the screenplay. I was quite confused for most of the film and found myself still discussing it with my mate the next day, trying to tie all the pieces together. Normally I really like that about a film, but with oblivion I was doing it as I was so confused about what the hell happened and why there were so many hypocrisies in the storyline, rather than trying to piece together all the clues of a clever plot.

Overall if you are a Sci-Fi fan or a Tom Cruise fan then I would recommend checking out the film for the reasons mentioned above. If you are neither of those then you really aren't going to enjoy this one so might be best to give it a miss.

SCORE: 6/10

IMDB Info for Oblivion

1 comments:

  1. OK, let me start by saying that I am the homer Simpson in the cinema, always asking a million questions and struggling to keep up when more than 5 characters are scripted. I read this review a while back and decided not to watch it based on your review.

    I agree that the CGI was absolutely amazing, and this always draws me in, but I found that this was coupled with a really great story line which kept you thinking all the time as it constantly twisted.

    Maybe I was just on the ball that night but I followed it and even blurted out possible outcomes before Leah (this was a first).

    For me, stunning CGI and amazing surround sound (those drones sounded awesome) and most importantly a really cool storyline meant it was one to watch again sometime in the future 9/10.

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